Millionaire YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, is popular for making videos in which he gives away large amounts of money. The 23-year-old has handed out millions of dollars in both cash and goods to family, friends, and strangers in his viral videos. He has also donated a lot of money to charity organizations. MrBeast is a philanthropist that loves to help people and wants to make the world a better place. His latest endeavor aims to raise money to clean up plastic pollution from the world’s seas.
MrBeast took to Twitter to help raise awareness about his efforts to clean the seas and stated, “two years ago we planted 20,000,000 trees and now we want to remove 30,000,000 pounds of trash from the ocean with #TeamSeas! $1 = 1 less pound of trash in the ocean!”
MrBeast announced TeamSeas in late October 2021 with a YouTube video for his 91 million subscribers in which he and a group of volunteers are seen cleaning up a polluted beach. As a follow-up to MrBeast’s tree-planting campaign which planted more than 20 million trees, TeamSeas is a campaign with the goal of raising $30 million. The money will be used to recover 30 million pounds of trash from beaches, oceans, and rivers according to the official #TeamSeas website.
To make this project a reality, MrBeast and his two friends, YouTuber Mark Rober and Campaign Director Matt Fitzgerald, partnered with two nonprofits: Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup, an organization that is continually developing and implementing new technologies that remove plastic from oceans and rivers.
All the money raised by TeamSeas will be divided equally and given to Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup, which are using the money to pay for their ocean cleanup efforts. All recyclable trash collected by the organizations will be recycled, and all contaminated and non-recyclable trash will be disposed of safely. But the fact that so much trash cannot be recycled is “why we need to reduce the amount of plastic we use and waste we generate, period,” the TeamSeas website reads.
Many people think that most of the trash in the ocean is plastic objects such as straws, bags, and six-pack rings, but the truth is that discarded fishing gear is the biggest part of the problem. Abandoning used fishing gear is a common practice in the industry, and this gear makes up about 46 percent of the trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The project will thus focus a lot of its energy on alternatives to the current fishing gear issue.
TeamSeas has already broken its initial record of reaching 30 million dollars and is still growing. To get involved, you can make a donation as small as $1 to clean up 1 pound of trash. TeamSeas accepts crypto donations as well. If you are a Barstow student and really align with the values of TeamSeas, this is a great way to get involved and help MrBeast to clean the seas.
